Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett says he will fight a move by the lawyer for Jones, whose arrest was caught on amateur videotape and sparked claims of police brutality, to forego a preliminary District Court hearing.

Bennett says the hearing – known as a bind-over hearing – is critical to completion of his investigation of the Jones case and to determining how he will proceed.

File photo by Mark M. Murray / The RepublicanAttorney Jared Olanoff, left, speaks to the press as his client Melvin Jones III, of Springfield, looks on following his appearance in Springfield District Court for a pretrial conference in February. He was arrested by four Springfield police officers on Nov. 27, and the arrest was caught on videotape.

The district attorney said he needs the hearing because witnesses, including police officers, would testify under oath in a public court. “It is a very unusual situation,” Bennett said, adding he is unsure if he’s encountered a similar situation during his 20 years as district attorney.

Jones’ arrest has been under a microscope since an amateur video showed Asher striking Jones with a flashlight during a traffic stop on Rifle Street. Police said Jones was arrested as he attempted to flee and grabbed an officer’s gun.

The video was published by The Republican and MassLive.com on Jan. 7; the Police Department and Bennett’s office said at that time that Asher and three other officers involved in the arrest were the subjects of both criminal and departmental investigations for the incident.

Jones’ lawyer Jared Olanoff recently waived Jones’ right to a bind-over hearing. Such hearings are typically conducted for a judge to determine if there is probable cause for charges to proceed to Superior Court.

“A preliminary hearing would not be useful in any significant way because Melvin Jones does not have any question about the facts of this case,” Olanoff said. “Melvin Jones has gone above and beyond in his cooperation with state and federal authorities. We continue to await the results of those investigations. We continue to have serious concerns about the amount of force used by the police during this incident.”

This is a Police Department photograph of Melvin Jones III following his arrest.

Jones suffered fractures to the bones in his face that needed reconstructive surgery. He also sustained a broken finger that required two pins and is now partially blind in one eye. Jones, 28, has pleaded innocent to drug and other charges, including assault and battery on a police officer.

His case also sparked calls for the return of a municipal police commission to investigate claims of police brutality.

The case is not scheduled to be back in court until Sept. 21 before District Court Judge Nancy Dusek-Gomez when it is slated for a pre-trial conference. Such conferences are usually held to discuss dates for trial and other proceedings.

A bind-over hearing was originally slated for early June but was postponed when Olanoff requested that a judge from outside of Western Massachusetts be assigned for it. Now that Jones has waived the bind-over hearing, Olanoff said an outside judge is no longer needed.

Without a bind-over hearing, a prosecutor can present a case to a grand jury in the Superior Court to determine if indictments should be brought. Asked whether he would bring the Jones case before a grand jury, Bennett said he had been counting on the bind-over process to decide his next step.

Asked about the passage of 10 months between the date of the incident and the next court date in September, Bennett said, “We didn’t plan this. We didn’t want it to go this long. We have to kind of reconsider the whole thing at this point.”

“There are a number of things we could do before (the September court date),” Bennett added. Asked for specifics, he said, “I’m not going to go into it.”

Meanwhile, a Police Commission disciplinary hearing on the conduct of Asher and the three other officers involved in Jones’ arrest was postponed from June 22 and has not been rescheduled.

Sgt. John M. Delaney, aide to Commissioner William J. Fitchet, said Bennett asked the department to postpone its hearing until after the bind-over hearing. Now, Delaney said, he is trying to reschedule the hearing but is facing difficulty with summer vacations.

The other three officers involved in the case are patrolmen Michael J. Sedergren and Theodore Truoiolo and Lt. John M. Bobianski.